Before You Taste

Uncorking: Before you enjoy the first sip of wine, one must
uncork the bottle. That being said, you may have noticed that it isn't
just New Zealand that is using screw caps (they were the first to use
them). Even some of our Washington state wineries are using screw caps
for the lower- to moderately-priced wines. But to get the cork out, a
good corkscrew is essential. The Waiter's Corkscrew is my favorite; it's
a flat, lever-type corkscrew with a convenient fold-up design and
concealed knife to cut through the foil. A somewhat less popular
corkscrew is actually a cork puller called the Ah-So. It has two metal
blades that are inserted down the side of the cork. The most important
advance in corkscrew design occurred with the birth of the Screwpull in
1979. It has a long worm, which is coated with Teflon so it glides
without friction through the cork. As the worm descends, the cork is
forced to climb up it and out of the bottle, requiring no effort on the
part of the puller. The "rabbit ears" corkscrew plows a hole through the
belly of the cork, ripping apart cells and causing the cork to
disintegrate into bits. Then there's the electric corkscrew with an
attached foil cutter. Mine works just fine but when I'm opening a $25+
bottle of wine, I prefer my Waiter's Corkscrew.

Aerating:
When the bottle of wine is opened, the wine needs to breathe --that is
technically the idea that wines soften and open up after exposure to
air. The amount of air in the tiny space of the neck of an opened bottle
is simply much too small relative to the volume of wine to have an
effect -- unless you left it opened for nearly a day. So, aerating the
wine will allow the young, tannic reds to unfurl. Just pour the bottle
into a decanter, carafe or pitcher so that the wine mixes with oxygen as
it pours from the bottle. Cabernet sauvignon, merlot, nebbiolo, and
petit syrah are reds that will benefit from aeration. Whites are better
left to be chilled, leaving it in its original bottle. Older, delicate
reds such as pinot noirs, older red Burgundies, older Riojas and
Chiantis are rarely poured out to aerate them.

Decanting:
This is a more complex procedure than aerating. It involves pouring
the clear wine off any sediment that may have precipitated out of it. If
you hold a vintage port or deeply colored wine up to a light, you may
see some crusty material clinging to the sides of the bottle. That is
sediment. Make sure the wine bottle is standing upright for a day or
two to let the sediment settle to the bottom of the bottle. Very
carefully remove the cork without picking up the bottle or moving it
around. After the cork is removed pick the bottle up carefully and with a
light source behind it (a candle, small light, or flashlight) begin
pouring the clear wine slowly into a decanter. When less than two inches
of wine is left, you should begin to see sediment coming into the neck
of the bottle. That's when to stop. As a rule of thumb, wines older
than 10 years are decanted, especially the tannic wines -- Port,
cabernet sauvignon, Bordeaux, Barolo and Rhone wines.